This film is part of Free
Russia's Idol
Glimpses of Russia's doomed aristocracy - walking tall, before the revolution brought them low.
Overview
Glimpses of Russia's doomed aristocracy - walking tall, before revolution brought them low. This World War I news item features both Tsar Nicholas himself and wartime general Grand Duke Nicholas, his first cousin once removed. Neither, in truth, was the idol of all Russia. The former would later be killed by Bolsheviks, while the latter escaped into exile - fates unknown and unknowable in 1915.
The final shots, assembling Russian military general staff for the camera, are rich with detail: their faces and body language could be watched and analysed over and over again. At the centre of the group, and the cameraman's frame, sits an eerily still, darkly garbed Orthodox priest: somehow a strangely disconcerting presence.
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